No African representation

[Kemi6]

Dear @Catherine-Powell 

I hope this message finds you well. 

I recently got an email from Airbnb about the host advisory board and I must say I am shocked that the continent of Africa is not in anyway represented! How is this possible?

I personally believe this is very very wrong. Africa is very much a part of Airbnb, as the rest of the continents, and not being represented on the board sends the wrong message.

Would you kindly look into this and address this oversight?

Thank you and kind regards, 

Kemi

@Lizzie @Anonymous @Brian @Anonymous 

[Robin4]

@Kemi6 

Kemi, of course South Africa...and in fact the whole of Africa is a vibrant part of the world, I spent possibly the best 5 weeks of my 76 years of life, in Africa. From Capetown to J'burgh to the wilds of the Okavango delta in Botswana, I will take my memories of Africa to the next life.

Kemi I would not be too upset by Africa's exclusion from the host advisory board. I stayed right away from putting my hand up to be involved for my part of the world because....I can see no good coming from it! My feeling is, it is just another company promotional tool to keep the mounting host discontent in check.

I have been in a lot of these zoom meetings over the past year and I can tell you anything over 10 participants results in chaos.....everyone tries to talk over the top of each other, conversations become totally disjointed and nothing meaningful comes out of these meetings. 

We all feel totally screwed at the end of the meeting because nothing relevant was achieved!

If someone gives me notice to prepare for a one/two hour one on one meeting with 4 senior ranking staff from the major departments of Airbnb where I can prepare my innermost thoughts, properly do my research and put forward (without interruption) sensibly thought out proposals on behalf of the hosting community, instead of silly little opportunistic microphone grabs .....I will be in it like 'flynn'!

But the reality is the company only want to give credence to user comment that fits their current profile, They are looking for a series of 'yes-men'  and comments that do not run parallel with company  strategy are not going to be taken on board. 

Things which are important to hosts are not important to Airbnb.

*

Don't feel to bad/sad that Africa was not included, it won't have any effect on your hosting......unless you are prepared to pat the company on the back for their outstanding efforts, they don't really care what you think!

Cheers......Rob

[Kemi6]

@Robin4

Dear Robin,

Thanks for weighing in on this. 

Let's even consider that this time around, the intentions for creating this board are well and good, how does a global company like Airbnb with thousands (probably hundreds of thousands) of hosts within the 2nd largest continent on earth commit such a blunder?

Does it mean there is not a single person on this whole continent that they consider capable?

Robin, as an African it saddens me. And frankly, I don't have the energy to get into anything dramatic. I simply wanted to point this oversight  (I desperately want to believe that is what it is) out to @Catherine-Powell and the founders, so this can be corrected.

Ps.... I believe a visit to Africa should be on the to do list for 2021 @Anonymous @Brian and @Anonymous 

Kind regards, 

Kemi

[Helen3]

No disabled hosts either @Kemi6  @Robin4 

So much for diversity and equality. 

[Cathie19]

I agree @Kemi6  with your very rational statements and @Helen3 .

Any committee over ten people can make for difficult conversation as stated by @Robin4 , unless it is one to one speak time. However, to overlook a continent is far from being inclusive  and in fact appears discriminatory. 

No matter what the overall mission or the power of the advisory board is or becomes, it should start with a transparent grouping of hosts from a globally represented field. 

[Mark116]

Africa is probably a very small market for Airbnb at present and this was the reason that no hosts from Africa are on the host board, that would be my guess and seems to follow what is known about Airbnb's largest markets.

[Helen3]

Do you think that’s also why they also haven’t identified hosts with disabilities @Mark116 ? 

[Mark116]

@Helen3  Yes, I would again I'm just guessing, but I would guess that hosts with disabilities are a very, very small part of the host community and I don't know if having a disability would even  make a difference in hosting style or priorities in most cases, the exception being maybe some home sharing hosts...but we already know that Airbnb doesn't care about home sharing hosts either.  

[Kemi6]

@Mark116

Dear Mark,

With all due respect, I do not agree with your statement.

According to Airbnb's own publication in 2018, there were about 35,000 hosts in South Africa alone.  That is definitely not small.

Kind regards, 

Kemi. 

[Suzanne302]

@Kemi6  I, too, would be disappointed but I think @Robin4 is correct. He has been around and always has wise advice!I do think it's important to point out to the "powers that be", however.

Side note, your listing looks amazing and now I'm really itching to travel!!!

[Kemi6]

@Suzanne302 Thank you for your kind words. 

[Inna22]

They had to get someone from every continent, gender preference, race, setting (urban etc), property size, type of hosting (home etc), style of property, income  level, religion, management style (self vs co host), regulated areas and not, hosts of experiences. That is dozens of people even If some overlap in one person.  Each has their own personal agenda and in no way represents the group they are designed to represent as they are not elected by this group. The idea is simply ridiculous. 

I did not get the email with the list. @Kemi6  can you share?

@Robin4 i was at one of those zooms some time ago. Had two minutes to speak on behalf of my small breakout room. Did not even have time to get though one thought. The group could not be more different in goals. Luckily, I had a prepared speech because I was not aware of the format and the group just told me to speak. What can I do in 2 minutes?? I was not invited to any groups since. I am as vocal as it gets so are many other people. They can just come here or join one of the major FB groups to get candid advice. 

[Kemi6]

Hello Inna, 

The link below was embedded in the email. 

https://www.airbnb.co.za/d/hostadvisoryboardintl

Kind regards, 

Kemi

@Inna22 

[Inna22]

@Kemi6thank you. Many of them seem to represent really large groups of hosts, so that’s good. I only recognized one person from this forum 

[Robin4]

@Inna22 

I was also in one of those meetings. I somewhat naively thought that the workshop would have been researched, bulleted, and each contributor would be, prior to the meeting,  given a uniform set of questions and asked for their input to asses their experience and knowledge on maybe 3 or 4 major hosting issues. I thought it was going to be organised.

Nah, it was just a free for all, I felt if I spoke for any more than 30 seconds I was hogging the limelight, others were looking around getting bored. Contributors were jumping in on top of each other, and poor Danni, the organiser had a devil of a time wondering where to direct the mic!

We all lead busy lives Inna, I allocate time to projects by the clock throughout the day and if I am going to give my time to a cause, I want that time to be useful, and when it transpired that these meetings were going to comprise of 17 remote participants, every one of whom is from a different part of the world and being faced by different challengers, I am afraid I could see no good coming out of this. The organisers will persist for three or four, get frustrated with the lack of constructive process and the whole thing will fizzle out like all the previous big fanfares from the top.

To be useful every meeting has to have an agenda that is strictly adhered too. 

Those who participate have to be briefed, fully research that brief and keep to the contents of it.

The global community has to be split up into 3 times zones and meetings organised that fit the participants of those individual zones .....5-6 participants from each time zone!  Participants in other times zones have access to each others meetings and rate for relevance and content.

There needs to be structure for this to work and from what I have seen so far these are just going to become chat rooms...that's why you and I won't be involved Inna.

Cheers.......Rob